A history lesson on national championships and the Cotton Bowl

I’ve gotten a couple of e-mails this morning from people wanting to me tell me they thought that a national championship was settled at the 1978 Cotton Bowl.

It was, but if you ask fans from Alabama and Arkansas with long memories, it really wasn’t.

That Notre Dame victory over Texas rankles long-time Longhorn fans who saw a chance to win the national championship slip through their fingers at the old stadium in Fair Park.

Notre Dame’s 38-10 victory over the Longhorns was a crushing loss for Fred Akers’ team . But it wasn’t a winner-take-all game for the national championship. There are still a lot of fans in Alabama and Arkansas who are convinced their teams deserved the national championship that year more than the Irish.

The Crimson Tide came into the Sugar Bowl ranked third, two spots ahead of the Irish. Alabama’s 35-6 victory over Ohio State in their bowl game was every bit as impressive as the Irish’s 38-10 triumph over Earl Campbell and Texas.

And No. 2 Oklahoma saw its national title hope blow up in a stunning 31-6 loss to Arkansas in the Orange Bowl.

It was perhaps the weirdest year in modern college football history. Six teams finished the season with one loss with Alabama, Arkansas, Notre Dame, and Texas, plus Penn State and Kentucky all finishing in the final AP top six with one loss apiece. Notre Dame lost to Mississippi, who lost to Alabama, who lost to Nebraska, who lost to Oklahoma, who lost to Arkansas, who lost to Texas who lost to Notre Dame. Penn State lost to Kentucky and Kentucky lost to Baylor who had lost to Texas, Arkansas, and Nebraska.

It made voting for the national champion after the season a royal mess. It was so bad that one Associated Press voter split his first-place ballot after the bowls into thirds, giving Notre Dame, Alabama and Arkansas part of his vote.

It’s a little misleading for the Cotton Bowl folks to claim the 1978 game as one that settled a national championship. Probably only in Notre Dame coach Dan Devine’s wildest dreams did he hope he could sneak out of the Cotton Bowl with a national title.

So it’s correct to say that the last “winner-take-all” national college football championship game to be settled in Texas was the 1964 Cotton Bowl game. In that one, No. 1 Texas throttled No. 2 Navy from the opening drive and cruised to a 28-6 victory over the Midshipmen.

Thankfully, we’ve gotten a lot smarter moving forward.

The College Football Playoff might not have the most imaginative name.

But at least it will get the job done as far as determining a champion.

There shouldn’t be many questions that the game scheduled at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington on Jan. 12, 2015, will be for the undisputed national championship.